Kapanalig Sa Wala - Literally, one who also have faith in nothing, is a play on words and wasn't really intended to mean something. It was made in jest to call the atheist camp when I was still actively debating god in one of the demised public forums out there. I think walang pananalig (faithless) would have proven to be more precise but I think the intended humor will be lost.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Atheism and agnosticism deal with the concept "god" in different spheres. Agnosticism is about not having knowledge about god or its existence while atheism is about not having a belief in the existence of god.

Agnosticism = lack of knowledgeAtheism = lack of belief

I think that nobody has true knowledge of the existence of god. Therefore, everybody is ultimately and technically an agnostic. A form of weak atheism is also referred to as agnostic atheism. There is a middle ground between theism and atheism in the technical sense since there are those who are "undecided" and some of them prefer to call themselves among many terms as non-theist or post-theist or what-not. Agnosticism is not a middle ground between theism and atheism since agnosticism is present in the whole set. But in practice, those who are at the atheism end of the spectrum, live in a world where gods are not part of reality.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

A series of small earthquakes with the strongest registering a magnitude of 6.7 in the Japanese scale hit the Kanto region of the main island of Japan. The epicenter is just north of Tokyo where it was felt as M5.0 in Ibaraki and Tochigi prefectures. My area is lumped together with the rest of Tokyo's 23 wards, where it's reported that we just felt it as M3.0 though I'm close to Saitama prefecture which in turn lies immediately south of the two prefectures earlier mentioned. Saitama felt the quake as M4.0 strong. It's my first time to be caught in this apartment with a moderate quake and while the stronger one lasts and frankly I felt scared with the doors and tables shaking and making noises. I work up earlier around 12MN because I left the idiot box on but couldn't sleep again. It's amazing how quickly the earthquake data is gathered here. The publicly funded TV network NHK flashes the data on the TV oftentimes while it's happening! It hope it's the last for this time. I plan to go to sleep now and forget about it.

Tiebreaker. That's what Clinton called Tuesday's primaries result where she won (by the skin of her teeth) Indiana with her 51% to Obama's 49% but lost in North Carolina by double-digit margin, (42% Clinton, 56% Obama). Only somebody in denial can call that a tiebreaker since Obama widened his lead in both popular vote and pledged delegate. She also reportedly lent another $6.4M to her campaign. The wisest decision she can make as a candidate in the coming days is conceding the race to Obama. More and more Clinton is appearing to be the desperate candidate.